Online Casino News and Information

The Nevada gaming Control Board is looking into the possibility of regulating how land based casinos and the non-gambling sides of online gambling sites enter into agreements. If the Board comes to an agreement and makes new regulations affecting this relationship, it could seriously alter or even cut off the money from events such as the World Series of Poker and others.

The World Series of Poker is owned by Harrah’s Entertainment. Several years ago they set up tournament rules cut the number of entries to the tournament by over 25%.

The WSP is now in the second year of a deal allowing Everest Poker to sponsor the tournament. Their logo appears on the tournament gaming tables. However, the WSP is televised throughout the year by ESPN, where those table top logos are highly visible. Everest Poker is based in Malta and does not accept wagers from American players.

There are other tournaments throughout the year which have online gaming site sponsors, or have online gaming sites involved in the tournaments in one way or another, and many think it is time for some sort of regulation to be enacted.

The full story here.

To the end that many states are struggling with the poor economy and are fighting to find new ways to pay for their existence and services, New Jersey passed State Resolution No. 19 on January 12, 2010. Resolution 19 instructs its President of the Senate to “take legal action concerning certain federal legislation prohibiting sports betting.”

The federal law prohibits sports betting in all states with the exception of Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana, who were grandfathered in and are permitted to offer sports betting. The State of Nevada is permitted to offer all types of sports betting on all professional and amateur sports games.

At the present time, all states, with the exception of Utah and Hawaii, permit some type of gambling or state lotteries. Hawaii is currently looking at legislation to allow a standalone casino in Waikiki.

State Senator Ray Lesniak of New Jersey claims that the federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA), violates the 10^th and the 14^th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He states it: that “It establishes a selective prohibition on sports betting in the U.S.”

Resolution No. 19 declares that the State of New Jersey “would benefit significantly from lifting the federal ban and legalizing sports betting in this state, as increased revenues would be generated and numerous jobs would be created for New Jersey residents as a result of sports betting activities at Atlantic City casinos and New Jersey’s racetracks, further enhancing tourism and economic growth,”

In other gaming news, Nevada is reeling big time from the poor economy. It has an unemployment rate of nearly 23% and the highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the nation. Gaming revenues were down over 20% between 2008 and 2009, with no end in sight at this time.

Read more on this find the full article here.

Rep. Barney Franks Internet gambling regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act, has signed on its 66^th co-sponsor, Ohio representative Charles Wilson. The bill is designed to legalize and regulate internet gambling while protecting and safeguarding players, and instituting safeguards against compulsive and addictive gambling, underage gambling, money laundering and fraud and identity theft.

The bill also allows each state to decide on its own whether or not to allow internet gambling within its borders. It also provides for states and Native American tribes with experience in running regulated gaming, to have a role in the regulatory process.

Wilson, a Democrat, is the third Congressman from Ohio to sign on to co-sponsor the legislation.

Ron Wyden represents Oregon, a state where online gambling is illegal. He is coauthor of the bill. What does this mean for internet gambling? We will have to wait and see. But this is one big step!

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (PRWEB) March 8, 2010 — The recent inclusion of Internet gambling regulations as provisions under a new tax reform bill in the Senate signifies an important–and necessary–step for the pro-online gambling movement in Washington, DC. As discussed in a new report from I-gaming consultancy BolaVerde Media Group, history suggests that Internet gambling’s advocates on Capitol Hill are now on a track toward enacted legislation.

On February 23, US Senators Ron Wyden and Judd Gregg introduced the Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010, a bill to simplify and reform the US tax code. The proposal includes a number of tax cuts, which the authors intend to offset by regulating and taxing Internet gambling.

“For a variety of reasons, we don’t believe this particular legislation shows a lot of promise,” BVMG Managing Director Mark Balestra explained. “However, this marks an important step for Internet gambling in Washington.

“We believe the best short-term opportunity to move a pro-Internet gambling measure at the federal level is to make it a funding component for necessary, expensive legislation, particularly as Congress faces this historic budget deficit. Not only does the tax reform bill bring I-gaming back to light in the Senate, it is the first case in which such a policy has been successfully attached to another bill.”

BVMG’s electronic report, “Internet Gambling on Capitol Hill,” demonstrates that the “piggyback” strategy had been used by opponents of I-gaming since 1998 and was executed masterfully in 2006 with the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) as a subsection of an anti-terrorism bill.

The report colorfully and thoughtfully examines the history of U.S. Internet gambling policy and the politicos who have shaped, fashioned and fought the policies past and present. In doing so, it synthesizes practical analysis of Internet gambling policy in Washington today and enables the reader to better understand how current legislative developments are shaping the path for regulation in months to come.

The new report also includes insightful analysis of revenue estimates, profiles the individuals and groups with influence in Washington and explores the potential impacts on every industry sector, from land-based and online casino operators to online sports books and tribal gaming.

“Between 1995 and 2010, 19 politicians have introduced 37 separate Internet gambling bills in Congress,” Balestra said. “It’s striking to me that while there’s been no shortage of political activity, no Internet gambling bill has passed both chambers of Congress as a standalone bill, and just one – UIGEA – passed as part of an unrelated bill and signed into law.”

Read the full story and more here.

A group of online gambling companies, the Manx eGaming Association (MeGA), has released some good news for the online gaming community. MeGA has released the results of its annual survey. It shows that employment in the online gaming community on the Isle of Man increased by 18% in 2009. Projections show a similar rise is expected this year also. Taxes paid in 2009 were more than double what was paid in 2008. 2009 paid taxes were £11.2 million. 2010’s estimated taxes are £19.1 million, almost doubling it again. The good news for the Isle of Man is that half the employment in the online gaming industry is local and that is very beneficial for the Isle of Man local economy.

Even more good news came out of Cypress. Global Betting and Gambling, an online gambling consultant company, had conducted a study on online gambling. It showed that revenues were up and expected to continue to climb.

Last Friday, Florida became the second state to file an intrastate egaming bill, when State Representative Joseph Abruzzo filed the Internet Poker Consumer Protection and revenue Generation Act of 2010. This submits plans for legal, intrastate online poker.

Under provisions within UIGEA, the Unlawful Internet gambling Enforcement Act, states can authorize and regulate egaming within their borders. The bill proposes that Florida allow it’s 21 pari-mutuels to operate card rooms as licensees of online poker company’s. The players would be pooled into a central network. This network would be run by a central hub operator, chosen by the state.

Hub operators would be required to pay a non-refundable license fee of $500,000 to Florida’s Division of Pari-mutuel Wagering of the Department of Business and Professional regulation. They would then pay an annual license fee of $1,000 . They would also pay an additional 10% of gross receipts from the intrastate poker.

The state tax rate for the card rooms will be 20% of gross receipts of the rooms. Player protection and safeguards against gambling addiction are also in the bill.

Players would be required to be at least 21 years of age. Daily limits on deposit size and frequency are also proposed.

Florida’s legislative session is 8 weeks long, so they have their work cut out for them to get this bill passed in a form that everyone can agree to.

Excessive shipments with Federal Express and excessive numbers of large checks being deposited against a company’s accounts, caused businesses to be suspicious and question the transactions. Those questions led to Michael Olaf Schuett, also known as Schutt, a German national, being held without bond in the Lee County jail. A federal judge ruled Monday that he was a flight risk.

When bank officials questioned the people cashing the checks, the customers explained that they were winnings from playing internet poker. When millions of dollars were discovered going into and out of hundreds of accounts he owns, and discovering that those accounts were linked to gambling, many of those accounts were shut down.

He was also noted to be shipping approximately 50 packages daily from his home. That number made FedEx employees very suspicious.

Those are some of the allegations alleged in a 39 page complaint filed in the Fort Myers Federal District Court.

Read the full story here.

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On 2-23-10 the Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010 was introduced by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Judd Gregg (R-NH). A spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative stated that this legislation shows the growing support in congress for scrapping the ban on internet gambling and coming up with a new system that will protect the player and still regulate the industry.

The provisions in the bill are similar to Barney Frank’s HR2267 bill, introduced last year. That bill has garnered 65 co-sponsors.

The spokesperson stated that legalized and regulated internet gambling is expected to raise billions of dollars in tax revenue. The Joint Committee on Taxation’s analysis showed that regulated internet gambling could generate around $42 billion for the U.S. Treasury over a ten year span.

Recently, eCOGRA released its investigation of Grand Prive Affiliate’s Program closure. Their report stated that they were tasked by Grand Prive with investigating: the manner in which the program was terminated, determining the amount owed to claimants, determining a fair settlement for claimants, and to produce a full and transparent report for release to the public.

The release of this report, rather than calming and settling questions, has rather opened up a firestorm of continued issues.

There are reports and complaints of the legacy players from Referspot, an earlier version of the Grand Prive affiliate program, being left out of the investigation. This resulted in very small amounts to be paid back to affiliates.

As such there has been much discussion on the Internet blogs over this investigation and its findings.

This is a letter sent by eCOGRA to a member of Casinomesister, an on-line forum for webmasters and affiliates.

 The information you provided as well as the time taken to compile this information is much appreciated.

We have noted your concern raised as to the adequacy of the settlement amount recommended by the eCOGRA investigators.

We would like to emphasise that our mandate from Grand Prive was to review all records provided by the company in respect of the Grand Prive Affiliate Program software and related database. We were not requested to review any other affiliate program system or information, nor were we made aware of any other system or pertinent information.

We are confident that the settlement amounts have been correctly calculated based on our mandate and the affiliate and player data provided to us by Grand Prive at the time of the review. Regrettably we cannot legally perform any further investigation work into this matter unless mandated by Grand Prive management. Such a mandate has not to date been forthcoming.  See this here.

Here is response to the above letter.

“I have given proof that our marketing talents are worth a hell of a lot more then $7 bucks and this entire audit was a waste of everyone’s time Grand Prive is nothing but a bunch of scum bag cheats and everyone on the web knows this expect eCogra! I hope that you seriously reconsider letting these thieves continue to carry that seal of approval you have given them! Do not send that money to me because I will end up owing a wire fee why not take that amount and have yourself a cup of coffee on behalf of Streak Gaming.”  Find this here.

Webzcas, a moderator at Casinomeister, had this to say after posting a part of the response to Christine:

So a couple of things here to comment on:

Grand Prive instructed eCOGRA to carry out this audit.

Grand Prive provided the data and one can assume that eCOGRA did not ask for any additional data.

eCOGRA have closed this matter.

I am waiting to see what they come back to Michael and Dominique with. Until such time I am having a big problem biting my tongue. This can be found here.

ECOGRA apparently wasn’t given complete records by Grand Prive, and apparently this audit was more an examination of records as provided than a complete audit. It seems that eCOGRA was unable to obtain any further records from eCOGRA.

Another post to the Casinomeister site was by Dominique. Below is her post and she makes a very telling response at the very end.

 “Well, eCOGRA can only audit what it can see.

But the whole thing is silly, really.

Andrew was nice enough to offer to call me to explain, but I figure I should wait and see what the general reaction is and if anyone comes up with any constructive, useable suggestions.

There is no way eCOGRA can make GP show them anything.

The stats are offline, GP isn’t going to produce them, and everyone is up the creek without a paddle.

The original issue a few years back was that Referspot ceased to exist and was replaced by Grand Prive affiliates, a Microgaming driven database. There were numerous issues transferring players into the corresponding accounts, and I went to look at archived threads at CAP and saw posts by the affiliate manager at the time explaining that the statistics were not working yet because MICROGAMING was still working on the integration of the system.

So MICROGAMING has information on what happened and the size of the database containing Referspot legacy players. And quite possibly they have the details too.

So it is not only Grand Prive who failed to disclose accurate statistics to eCOGRA, it is also Microgaming.

In any case, this proves that GP considers itself above the law, and if nothing can be done about it, one can only wonder when another incident like this will occur. Apparently this industry does not feel it needs to conduct business in a law abiding fashion.

It also proves that Microgaming has no interest in assuring us that their licencees are acting ethically.

I must conclude that JTODD and APCW weekly were correct all along re. Grand Prive and Microgaming.

So, is it possible for affiliates to trust affiliate programs? Referspot never had any issues. And look how that ended.

It looks foolish anymore to give any considerable exposure to any particular program. The more players go to any one casino, the higher the risk of substantial losses.

So much for self policing of the industry. You can read full story here.

How much more trouble does this cause for an industry trying to put it’s best foot forward and get legalized and regulated by the federal government? People and organizations are fighting in and out of court in an effort to get online gambling legalized and regulated and then something like this occurs to shine the spotlight on the very part of the business nobody wants to admit exists. This is certainly fuel for the anti-gambling factor in congress.

Only a few weeks after MasterCard blocked all online gambling transactions for United States players, VISA has also decided to block all online gambling transactions. VISA is the largest credit card supplier in the U.S. This is probably in response to the upcoming June deadline to start enforcing UIGEA regulations. MasterCard and VISA are just making sure that they are ready when UIGEA is enforced. Whether or not it will be enforced is still in doubt. It places and huge financial and logistical burden on the financial institutions, not to mention the fact that congress may soon legalize and regulate internet gambling.

Most credit and debit cards have been refusing online casino transactions for years, so this is nothing new. Over the years, most online gamblers have had to find new ways to pay for their enjoyment and this will just be another ripple in that pond. Many will probably start using e-wallets if and when their credit cards are refused. But they have always found a way to pay and they always will. If congress starts listening to the citizens of this great country instead of lobbyists, then internet gambling will be legalized and regulated and this will all go away.